


in the depths

by Utanaza



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Animal Death, Attempted Murder, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Bullying, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, First Time Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Physical Abuse, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Smut, Unhealthy Relationships, mention of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29743080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Utanaza/pseuds/Utanaza
Summary: "The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man toward the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure, and finally, for the supernatural.... The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white." - Wassily Kandinsky
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	in the depths

It stopped raining today.

Sunlight pours in from opened windows; the classroom and its students bask in its warm glow, as it casts long shadows on the floor and onto the walls. They gather en masse, huddled together as they wave down to the world below. Girls wave to whatever boy they find most attractive on the sports team, and boys flirt with whatever skirt they saw. Someone even cracks open a novel, shuffling pages until they reach where they last left off.

The rain stopped, so everyone has a reason to pull their jackets a little looser. The glare between light and shadow bother him; all the sun does is get into his eye. It was no celestial beast – just  _ annoying. _

__

“Ah, did you hear?” A girl with braided hair whispers in the corner of the room. She is barely audible, but just loud enough to eavesdrop if someone honed in on her.

“About what?” Another girl whispers back, her dark hair shifting as she leans closer.

“You know,” the first girl says, finally above a whisper, but her voice goes even lower after that, “about the abandoned reservoir outside the city – they say there’s a  **_monster_ ** there.”

As the bell rings, he takes his backpack, hanging it over his shoulder as he leaves. Every day is the same – endless gossip, endless pain.

What else can he say? 

Vilem Devin is eighteen years old. He’s a year behind in school due to an “incident” no one speaks about.

He’s been told to forget about it. Everyone forgets about it, in the end.

He’s average height – no more than five feet, eight inches. He has short black hair, and his skin is fairly pale. He doesn’t have a reason to go out much beyond school, and even then, he’d rather skip it.

He has two parents, both who are often never home; his father is a wayward drunk who does as he likes  _ whenever _ he likes, and his mother overworks herself in a demeaning office job to keep their tiny apartment. Most days – every day – he comes home to an empty, cold house. He has to cook his own meals, wash his own dishes, do the laundry, and dust the shelves. It’s been like this ever since he was a little kid – when his father walked out on everyone, and when his mother could no longer afford to stay at home. He’s grown up not to care.

There’s an estranged older sister who moved out years ago. He briefly remembers her pictures on the wall; the ones that lay shattered on the floor. He briefly remembers she must have been married by now, maybe even with a child of her own.

She’s married to a woman.

Father and Mother never approved. They don’t speak of her.

It’s as if she never even  **_existed_ ** .

School is boring.

School is  _ lonely _ .

His mind races with all the  _ other  _ things he could be doing right now, because there is  **_nothing_ ** left for him to do. Despite attending what could be called a “prestigious” school – on grades alone, no less – it is not challenging enough to pique his  _ interests _ . He’d say it was a pity, if he didn’t  _ hate _ every single teacher he comes across. They moan and lament over the loss of potential; the ever-present thought that time was like an arrow – straight, and it only moved  _ forward _ . “You’re wasting your future,” they tell him. “Don’t you care?”

He could very well graduate early. He  _ could _ make up for lost time. Perhaps he could even go to a good local university and become a doctor, or a lawyer. Instead, he lags behind the rest of the crowd, unmoved by the pleas of those around him. “There is no need for this,” his mother berates him. Whenever she’s home, it’s a chance for her to call him a fool, and an idiot. He can keep up with any subject, no matter what the lesson. He could do anything he wanted to. He knows this.

But Vilem is  _ bored _ , and _ lazy, _ so he makes no effort to advance himself. He has no reason to care. He has no reason to do what his mother wishes. He has no hobbies. He doesn’t think he’s had one in  _ years _ . During lunch, the rumor mill starts up all over again.

Girls sit on top of desks, their legs hanging from such heights as the boys gathered down in the courtyards and nature to tussle amongst the shade. The crowd clamors into bowls of spring soup and garlic; freshly made bread of that very morning. Vilem stares at his pre-packed ham sandwich he bought this morning from the deli – there was not enough for breakfast, which meant he had to save up for dinner.

“I heard it was twenty-three feet long!” A girl shouts. Her hands are pressed together tightly.

“I heard it eats people,” a boy responds, laughing.

“No, it can’t be. Weren’t animal corpses being found?” A different girl cuts in.

“But doesn’t it have more than one mouth? Maybe it eats people  _ and _ animals,” the first girl says, idly twirling her hair around her fingers.

He ignores the clamor of the crowds and their idiotic stories of monsters eating people, and tries to bite into his sad, cold sandwich. It sucks.

He goes out to the reservoir after school, following the mountain path.

There’s no particular reason  _ why _ – he doesn’t think the monster  _ exists _ . It’s the stuff of campfires in the middle of the night to impress your friends by scaring them; it’s the wild imaginings of some internet user for  _ kicks _ . People are  _ afraid _ of the unknown; they fear what they cannot  _ understand _ , and it only takes  _ one  _ person seeing something even  _ slightly _ off in the dark to start the wildfire of rumors and gossip and stories – it only takes a single match, and suddenly, all is  _ consumed _ .

It’s not something  **_real_ ** , he thinks, and so, he has  _ nothing _ to worry about.

The abandoned reservoir looks like he thought it would – an abandoned reservoir.

Flora grow wild and unchecked, filling every crack and crevice on crumbling concrete foundations, graffitied with cheap dollar store spray paint. The walkway rails are rusted to their core, the metal framework jutting out, almost like a broken rib. Rain water pools in some of the empty basins and near the end, a lake of some kind, with brick pillars and a rotten wooden frame, reflecting in mosquito-ridden waters. It’s larger than he expected, but he can still navigate without getting lost.

As he stands at the lake, he realizes the dirt around it has a weird smell. He suddenly realizes that  _ everything _ has a weird smell, actually. He assumes it must be decay of some kind – the smell of rot mixed with rain water and rust, and whatever happened to die here. It makes the most logical sense.

The only thing that happens is the sight of leaves falling on the water, disturbing a clear reflection.

It’s a cold and rainy night.

Vilem walks the deserted streets with a plain back umbrella, tightly gripping to white plastic bags, branded with generic warm colors.

His mother always leaves a note on the fridge when they’re low on food. Stray handfuls of bills sit next to the counter, waiting to be grabbed and stuffed into his pocket. His mother is simply too busy with work to buy groceries for her son, and father, as usual, is nowhere to be seen. So, it falls to him, and he does his duty.

He grips the handle of his umbrella as he stares at the mountain path from the crosswalk. Despite finding nothing, he keeps thinking about it; he keeps thinking about the  _ supposed _ monster in the reservoir. All his classmates keep acting like they’ve  **_seen_ ** something – like they’ve  **_heard_ ** something.

They keep speculating on all the things this monster could be. The stories change from day to day; one afternoon, the monster is a human snake that is more snake than human. The next morning, it’s an ungodly creature with two mouths that walks on all fours. And on some evenings, a person describes it as a large shadow with boney limbs and talons that scrape the ground underneath it.

It drives him  **_mad_ ** .

He went to the reservoir and found  _ nothing _ . He is ignored by his classmates, labelled as a know-it-all who just wants to ruin the _ fun _ . Vilem decides he’s going to find out the truth. There is nothing else to do, after all. Nothing else  **_interests_ ** him. 

He walks up the mountain path, leaving his grocery bags in the bushes as he grips his umbrella with two hands. The weird smell of rot and decay is  _ worse _ now in the rain – it  _ permeates  _ everything it touches, and he has to put his sleeves to his nose to even  _ slightly  _ stand it.  _ Rain makes everything smell terrible _ , he thinks bitterly. It doesn’t matter; he doesn’t plan on sticking around very  _ long _ at this rate.

“You don’t even exist, do you? I’m just wasting my time,” he speaks out into the darkness, waiting for an answer, a sign.  **Anything** .

The only thing that happens is that leaves fall and ripple on the surface of the water. He gets frustrated, and leaves.

There’s a letter from his sister.

He opens it at the door, recognizing her cursive writing. She wants to visit, she writes in the letter. She misses their parents. She misses  _ him _ . It takes him by  **_surprise_ ** .

They are years apart, enough to cause a sense of distance between them; a generational  _ gap _ . But in her mature, cursive writing he comes to recognize from faint memories of an older girl helping him with his homework, he reads it plainly – she  _ misses _ her little brother, and wants to see  _ him _ most of all. Vilem isn’t sure how to feel about it. He doesn’t know if  _ he _ misses his sister as  _ she _ misses him. He wonders, in the back of his mind, if  _ this _ is what his parents wanted – if they finally achieved what they dreamed of.

He can’t bring himself to care. But it’s touching.

It’s  _ touching _ to know he is remembered by her.

His father appears suddenly, as though a monster from the shadows. He rips the letter from his hands. It only takes the first few lines for his father to become angry, and for him to hit Vilem in the face hard enough to bruise almost instantly, blood dripping from his nose. His father yells at him, saying he does not have a daughter and that Vilem should throw it away. “Where did you even find this piece of garbage,” he spits out, but Vilem says nothing, cradling his face.  _ A monster from the shadows _ , he thinks. Only ever to appear to cause hurt, pain, and suffering.

Vilem watches as his father  **burns** the letter in the sink.

_ We do not speak of her. You’ll do well to remind yourself _ .

There’s a girl with neat, short blond hair and clear blue eyes. Her name is Misha, and she’s the class president.

She snaps a ruler against the desk of a nearby student engaging in gossip. “I swear, all of you are chasing after _ nothing _ ,” she says, scalding. “It’s making your grades  _ suffer _ .” 

Her uniform is always cleanly-pressed and stark white; hems subtly tucked into navy skirts, and shoes always shined to a polish. She always wears an orange clip in her hair, and she makes it her job to take care of everyone in the class. She is a strict mother overlooking her rows of helpless children, and by her own admission, she takes her job  _ very _ seriously.

They do  _ not _ get along.

Misha finds him much too  _ aimless _ ; without ambitions, he’s just wasting away his potential, she tells him. Misha reminds him of his own mother, and it only makes him dislike her more. Much like his mother, Misha does not know of his life; she knows little of his past and his struggles, and has no place meddling in his affairs. She bears  _ no _ witness to this empty shell he calls a body, left to rot in the sun. Abandoned, dusty. Sad.

She notices he’s been more withdrawn lately. More than usual, anyways, his head deep in figuring out what  _ exactly _ is pulling him back to the reservoir. She asks if she can help with anything. She’s looking at the gauze taped to his face; she glances underneath the white, at black and blue. For all her mothering, she can’t quite look at it - her eyes dart away. 

He just tells her off.

It’s raining again today.

A small circle of girls gather in the corner of the dimly-lit room. They speak in hushed whispers, as the last of the class shuffle in on weary feet, placing an array of umbrellas in the same basket. The girls are still just loud enough to eavesdrop if someone listened carefully, and there is  _ nothing _ else to listen to the classroom. Time is only marked by the ticking of a clock, and the sound of pencils moving forward.

“Ah, did you hear?” That same girl with braided hair asks.

“About what?” That same girl leans in, her black hair shifting on her shoulders.

“They found a body, half-ripped to shreds. It was…. a little girl,” the braided girl whispers, and even lower, she says, “they found her at the abandoned reservoir.” The other girls gasp, asking for more information.

It’s almost disgusting in a way. He had been up to the reservoir at least twice, and found nothing. Suddenly, a little girl dies, and the rumor mill grinds its toxic seeds. Despite the horrific fact someone’s child  _ died _ , it’s all a ghost story to them.

Vilem stops listening in. He can’t  **hear** this.

There was nothing he could have done for her. He knows this.

And yet…

It almost makes him feel empty.

On Fridays, they gather downstairs to the first floor Home Economics lab. They have cooking lessons every week or so – when the teacher can remember to buy food – and it’s about the one and only class Vilem wouldn’t be able to fake his way into being good at. Vilem is genuinely good at cooking and excels easily. In the classrooms, he’s seen as the lazy genius that should get dropped from the school, but here, in the lab, his opinion and experience is respected; his eccentricities  _ tolerated _ .

He’s had to fend for himself.

It’s only natural he knows how to cook.

The windows are open. The faded yellow curtains dance in the wind as some kids from the class before stay behind to wash pots and pans. A girl lights up as she sees him enter the room, and thanks him for his advice last time. She smiles as she does a small bow, and he nods. He goes to help the others wash some sort of sauce off in the sink, as everyone else takes a seat.

Misha is his partner for today. She looks at him confused, with funny faces as he gathers two plain white aprons for them, and puts his on with ease. The teacher tells them to go to page fifty-five in the old communal cooking book the class had – the only one the school’s had for a long time, expressed in rips and tears and spilled coffee stains. “I don’t understand,” she tells him as she fumbles putting on her apron, “you do nothing but sleep in class all day. And now I’m supposed to believe you’re some master chef?”

He doesn’t say anything as he swats her hands away as she complains, and ties her apron himself.

Out of all the people he expected to know their way around a kitchen, he somewhat expects Misha to know. She is strict and motherly; an obsessive mother-hen who looks after her helpless flock of idiots. It seems unimaginable that she doesn’t know how to tie an apron, or use a knife, or how to even turn on the stove. And yet, here she is, asking which way to turn the knob or if she should push it, and nervously glancing at the chef’s knife in his hands.

It’s not even that  _ sharp _ .

Misha offers to cut the vegetables, likely in an effort to not make herself look worse, but it doesn’t work. He’s embarrassed by her awkward and slow cutting – like she was  _ afraid _ of the thing. He leaves her to flounder as he makes the stock for the soup with the amount of vegetables she was able to cut in four minutes – which is to say, almost  _ none _ . 

“I’m surprised. I thought most boys wouldn’t know how to cook,” she says, eyeing him.

“”I thought a girl your age would at least know how to cut a damn  _ vegetable _ ,” he snarls back.

They stand in bitter silence as Misha pours in the rest of her poorly-cut vegetables, and he could only hope he  _ never _ has to work with her again. He would have had her make the stock instead, but perhaps it was better she stuck to cutting vegetables – there was no going back from a burnt down kitchen. For the rest of the cooking process, she cleans and puts away whatever they don’t need, and he doesn’t let her get even  _ close _ to the pot.

In the end, they make sorrel soup. He takes a deep breath as he pours a bowl for him and Misha, and tears a small bread loaf in half. They lean toward the window as they enjoy the fruits of his labor, and as the wind brings the scent of nature into the room. She tries to speak to him, but he doesn’t respond.

“You just seem to have a lot on your mind,'' she says in an even tone. “Don’t pay any attention to the rumors. Our class is just bored and stupid,” she sighs.

He doesn’t say anything.

He goes up to the abandoned reservoir again.

It’s a fool’s bargain, really – made worse by the recent discovery of a young girl. He sees the remnants of police tape in the trees, and avoids them. He doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to  **_see_ ** . He tells himself he isn’t going to – that he can avoid the reality of the situation. The rotting smell is made worse by whatever blood and body parts had been left, leaving a disturbing perfume of metal and rust in its wake.  _ Everything _ reeks of death, and Vilem puts his sleeve up to his nose in a vain attempt to ward off the smell.

It’s a fool’s errand. If the monster truly exists, the girl and him are not so  **_different_ ** . Vilem isn’t going to pretend he can fight off such a beast and live. But he so  _ desperately _ wishes to find out the truth, so he risks it.

He risks it, knowing it’s more than likely an attack from some wild animal, or even a serial killer. In a way, he guesses he’s asking for it.

He doesn’t seem to  **_care_ ** . 

In a way, he’s mad. Maybe not about the girl’s death – he didn’t even know her, after all. The bell tolls for thee, and no man is an island, he remembers, but he and the girl are  _ distant _ . She is but  _ one _ tragedy of  _ several _ , and this is what separates them. He’s mad because the rumors are starting to  **_consume_ ** him, and he’s  _ tired _ . He’s mad at himself for coming here so often, knowing full well he hasn’t seen anything yet. He’s wasting his time, but yet… this is  _ interesting _ . This is not  _ boring _ . This is  _ dangerous _ . Perhaps, in a way, he keeps coming because he has something to  _ prove _ .

It’s stupid.

He calls out. He yells for the supposed monster to come out, claiming it’s a coward if it doesn’t show up. He tires himself fairly quickly, so he sits, and he waits. The rumors circulate in his mind. Twenty-three feet long, two mouths, eats people and animals, sometimes is a snake and something not – so many ways to describe something that possibly doesn’t even  **_exist_ ** . As the seconds turn into minutes, he feels himself getting angry. He’s wasting his time  _ again _ . Just as he is about to get up, the water starts to ripple from something underneath.

The lake waves crash against brick and concrete, and reveal…. a  _ monster _ . 

It’s not human. It’s stupid to say it’s not human, but it’s not human. The creature standing before him has a large, dark grey muscular body with black elongated limbs. Its hands have sharp talons, digging up the earth from underneath. They bend in odd, horrible ways – like the broken hand of a mannequin. Long raven hair grows like moss down to its chest, covering up most of its face and head, only showing a crooked nose and thin lips. It grins, showing yellow serrated teeth. It looms over him, and Vilem is terrified. The creature takes a step forward, and he can hear the bones  _ moving _ in its body. He can see how the skin  _ stretches _ around the joints.  **_Snap_ ** after  **_snap_ ** , and yet… the creature shows no pain. It shows signs of  **_nothing_ ** .

“What an interesting human,” it says in a low, dark voice that Vilem can feel rumble deep in his chest. “Have you no desire to run yet?”

Vilem runs off as the creature laughs, and it echoes all over the reservoir.

He doesn’t dare go back for  _ weeks _ .

He can’t – he’s  **_frozen_ ** by what he saw, the truth to all the rumors. There is _ something _ in that reservoir, and that something could have  _ easily _ killed that little girl. What happened, he wonders? Had she been alone and lost? Had she wandered off, from her parents or loved ones? Had she been exploring the reservoir, only to fall into the water and drown? Or did that monster snatch her up and tear her into shreds?

The only clear image that comes to mind is how  _ red _ the water would be – a dark crimson – and how the smell of death permeates the very  _ soil _ of the reservoir.

The rumors are true, and yet, they are also not true; the base of rumors is whispers of half-truths, and the perception of twisted mirrors. It is a haze that obscures reality – an encompassing  _ blindness _ . Maybe the monster is twenty-three feet long, but it doesn’t seem to have two mouths. It’s not snake-like; it has no fangs nor any scales, and snake bones do  _ not  _ snap along with movement. The hair was correct, for the most part, and so were the talons. He hears more girls whisper in their circles in the corners of rooms, daring each other to check it out.

“Well, I just want to know if it’s true,” a girl with a red tie on her wrist says.

“It’s probably not true, guys. I know we’ve gotten pretty excited over it, but… maybe people are just seeing things,” the girl with black hair responds, brushing it back.

He cannot tell them how wrong they are. Both for doubting, and wanting to go in the first place.

He passes by the trail to the reservoir.

It’s raining again, as he walks home from school, gripping a plain black umbrella.  _ Rain makes everything smell terribly _ , he thinks as he passes by a park with freshly mowed grass. Still, the barely hidden concrete structure on the mountain entices him, despite the well-known dangers. He glances up, and he knows this is a foolish decision. Yet, he turns back to hike up the muddy dirt path up to the abandoned reservoir, straight to where he saw the monster rise from.

At this point, he knows it’s madness. He could be killed, he could be eaten. He would very much likely  _ die _ , and no one would  _ ever _ find him. Yet, he shouts for the monster. He calls out for it, for anything to happen, for someone to be  _ there _ . His heart races as he yells louder and louder, until his voice becomes hoarse from his effort.

There is only  **_silence_ ** .

Vilem feels he’s being  _ mocked _ .

At night, he lies in his bed.

He lies in an empty, white room.

The bedsheets are pale and translucent. The pillows he rests his head on are old, and worn out; the covers are riddled with holes, and yet, he cannot find it within himself to get new ones. The one shelf he was granted in childhood is only full of textbooks – he was never allowed the luxury of grand adventures and fantasy, of stories his mother thought would give him the wrong impression of life. Vilem was always told he was too smart for it – he needed to focus on what  _ really _ mattered; grades, the future, and paying back all the work his mother put in raising him.

He wonders if there’s a way to find out information on the creature.

He wonders if he can still remember how to get there.

On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, Vilem goes to his local library.

He hasn’t stepped foot in the library since middle school – back when he and some old classmates would cram for exams.  _ They _ would cram, mostly, and he would play the make-pretend teacher. The work always moved  _ painfully _ slow, and so did  _ they _ in all their glorious, stupid wisdom. He often found himself getting bored and wandering off to more  _ interesting _ parts of the library. He remembers deciding not to show up one weekend, too tired and too hungry to care. It was back when his father was still somewhat around, he remembers. His father liked to starve him.

He was yelled at by his “friends” the next day.

_ “If you don’t care about anything at all, then at least tell us! You think you’re just above all of us, huh?! At least my dad cares about me!” _

__

Vilem punched one of them in the face after that, and they were no longer friends. After middle school graduation, a majority of them moved away to different parts of the country. There were at least two stragglers he could remember passing by in the hallway one time, both pretending to ignore him. He thought it was for the best. He no longer went to the library.

He skims past sections, going directly to the world mythology shelf. He picks out books on local gods, myths, and legends. He goes to the occult section to pick up books about spirits and demons. Thinking back on the creature, it must be a demon, he thinks. Most people would consider it a demon from Hell. But perhaps, someone from long ago, would have also considered the creature a  _ god _ . Is it like Lucifer from the Bible? An angel ripped from  **_grace_ ** ? Or is it just a snake meant to trick and nothing more?

He sits down at an empty table, and flips through pages and pages. Morals, fables, creations, gods, religions – he reads all that he can. He skips to urban legends, and just finds stuff on Bigfoot which was an entirely pointless exercise. He puts back all the books after a few hours of skimming. He’s no close to an answer as to what the beast actually is, but the rituals in ancient mythology gives him an idea.

Would the monster come out if Vilem brought it an  **offering** ?

He goes back to the reservoir.

Vilem has a sandwich in his hands. He bought it from the deli store this morning – it has provolone cheese, lettuce, and boar ham. He feels very stupid holding it. In the old tales, an animal is typically sacrificed; be it a goat, a chicken, or a cow. It is livestock – animals of great importance, if not humans instead. Yet, all he brings is a cheap sandwich from the deli. His sacrifice is worth about three dollars and fifty cents. He can’t afford anything else, and he can’t bring himself to kill a chicken, so he tosses his sad sandwich into the water. It disappears.

Only ripples indicate anything was ever there.

After school, he heads straight to the reservoir and waits for the monster to show up.

He is quiet, this time. There is no yelling. There is no making himself look like a fool, no making himself hoarse from his effort, and there are no offerings. He just waits in silence, hoping it would be enough after everything that happened between them. He stares into the water, and he supposes he  **_prays_ ** – for a sign, for someone to be there, for  _ anyone _ to be there. Eventually, the monster resurfaces again and moves closer to the stone shore where Vilem is waiting to hear that same sickly crick- **_crack_ ** moving to the rhythm of the limbs.

“Will you run this time?” It asks.

He shakes his head.

“Why are you here?” It asks again.

Vilem swallows. “Stories. There’s rumors about you and the reservoir. I want to know the truth.”

The creature’s curiosity is piqued, it seems, as it looms over him, casting a dark shadow. The creature is so close, he can smell its breath; it’s awful, he thinks. It reeks of  _ death _ and  _ corpses _ .

“What will you give me?” It asks a third time.

“Anything. I’ll give you anything,” he says, and immediately  **regrets** it.  _ What a stupid thing to say _ .

The creature grins, showing off all of its teeth. “In that case…. I’ll have  _ you _ .”

Afternoons are now spent at the reservoir.

He drops by day after day after school, and he sits down at the lake to wait. He lets the stillness of the water calm him; the way the leaves flutter as the wind blows through the canopy of trees. He tries not to let the mosquito bites bother him, even as he pulls down his uniform sleeves to soothe his reddened skin. The monster appears from the water as though Aphrodite born of the sea, and it lays his head near the concrete shore.

Vilem figures out many things, and yet so very little, all at the same time.

What at first glance looked like grey skin is not skin, but fine _ fur _ . The monster has a name. The monster’s name is Agnit, and he identifies as  **_male_ ** . Or as male as nature can classify him, Agnit likes to say. He likes to joke, and his personal brand of comedy is dry humor. He has lived in the reservoir for as long as he can remember; a faint memory of being young and silent and free. He believes he was here before there even was a reservoir, but he cannot truly say. 

Agnit cannot remember many things beyond a few years ago.

To him, it’s all vague feelings, sights, smells; they often blend together and confuse him, as he admits he has no real sense of  **time** . He only knows of a time  _ before _ the reservoir, when he assumes he was a young child, and a time  _ after _ the reservoir was built, when he was an adult. It’s somewhat of a disappointment in Vilem’s eyes that he doesn't know why or how he is here.. Agnit has seemingly  **_lost_ ** his memory of where he lived and where he was  **_born_ ** , if such a thing as Agnit could ever have been born in the first place. To top it off, Agnit himself does not particularly  _ care _ .

“Humans are too easily consumed by things that do not matter,” he says.

But Agnit does remember  _ this _ – the reservoir was not always here, and he did not always live in the reservoir. He remembers a place much more ancient, with trees as tall as towers, the soil the firm foundation, and a hazy fog in the distance. There were only animals back then – no humans. Perhaps that was a time of god and demons, Agnit jokes, though if he had seen a god, he couldn’t remember.

“Do you eat humans?” He asks, remembering the little girl they had found.

“Sometimes,” Agnit responds casually. “Not often. I no longer hunt as I used to.”

Vilem is silent. So, it’s true then – it’s highly possible that Vilem is sitting next to, and casually chatting, with the same monster who killed and ate that little girl from a few months ago. Agnit is so casual about it – as it if it doesn’t  **matter** . As if he is talking about the sky being blue, or how the water would sometimes get muddy after a landslide. As if Vilem would have no  **reason** to be afraid to sit next to him, and talk with him. He cannot  **understand** it. Does Agnit see him as  **prey** ? Does Agnit see him as a  **companion** ? If the creature before him sees him as prey, how can he stop himself? Agnit doesn’t eat as often as he used to – he’s hungry more often, but accepts it as a fact of life. Agnit  _ must _ see him as prey. Cats often played with their food – was this Agnit “playing”?

“It’s far easier not to,” he continues. “Humans are such curious creatures – I simply have to  **wait** . I am getting a little old, after all. Making too much noise these days,” he chuckles.  _ The bone snapping was  _ **_normal_ ** _? _

Vilem is speechless. He cannot think of what to say, as he feels Agnit’s gaze upon him. He speaks anyway. “Is this what you meant…. by  _ I’ll have you _ ?” He quietly asks, and Agnit makes no move to eat him. He makes no moves at all.

He only seems to  **_laugh_ ** **.**

He returns home late one night, from visiting Agnit at the reservoir.

He is awfully curious about humans and their history, despite openly eating them. Agnit himself does not find it abnormal, of course. He likens it to Vilem’s knowledge on cattle – humans eat cattle, Agnit explains, and humans still study and learn about them anyways. He’s half-way tempted to correct Agnit and tell him he actually knows very  _ little _ about cattle, but he lets him have it anyway.

His mother is home for once.

She stands under a lone light in the kitchen, her arms crossed and her stare hard. She’s angry. She yells at him as soon as he steps through the door. She asks him where the hell he was. She asks him who the hell he  _ thought _ he was. Vilem only mutters he was at a friend’s house.

“Some friend of yours!” She yells again, kicking the kitchen trash can to the side. “Keeping your poor momma  _ worried _ . Keeping your poor momma  _ upset _ ! Just who does he think he is anyways?! When did you start hanging out with such a delinquent crowd?!”

Vilem takes it.

_ You’re never  _ **_home_ ** _ anyways. _

The rumors keep cycling, like a whirlpool around the classroom and back; always with the same girls with the same clips in their hair, whispering in the same corner of the room. The days bleed into each other, as the girls all become one singular voice to  **haunt** him. He grows  **tired** . They’re getting so many things  **wrong** , he thinks.

__

“Oh, so it’s a snake again. Pure white scales?” A girl with a blue clip asks. She’s wrong.

__

“Half human snake, remember? Red eyes,” another girl responses, with braided hair. She’s wrong. Agnit’s eyes were  _ yellow _ .

__

He wonders if anyone else was  **brave** enough.

__

Vilem buys the same cheap sandwich from the same deli store. He gives it as an offering to the water, and Agnit takes it, as he always does. It’s a  _ shitty _ offering, Vilem thinks, worth only three bucks - but Agnit eats it anyways with no complaints. He remembers that he is often hungry and likely scavenges if he cannot get a proper meal in the water. He remembers Agnit considers himself as older, and that things are easier just to wait for. He does not look like a crocodile, but he acts like one in this regard. Perhaps the snake rumor is not too far off.

Agnit jokingly asks, “Why do you think I want you around, Vilem?”

“Because you want to eat me, I guess,” he responds plainly. Cats play with their food often – Agnit is just  _ playing _ with  _ him _ .

Agnit laughs. Vilem can feel it in his chest. “I suppose it is better than what most humans would assume. They always think so highly of themselves, they always think they’re so  **interesting** to a being like me. Most humans rarely are, but I will say….” He trails off. Vilem perks up.

“I have little use for you  **_dead_ ** .”

Misha stops him after lunch one day. She grabs his arms as he tries to walk away from the courtyard. She asks him where he’s been. She says she’s been noticing that he goes to the abandoned reservoir quite often. She’s seen him on the path every day after school now. She asks him why. She asks him if this is really what he wants to do with his life, chasing after  **_ghosts_ ** . Vilem denies this. He tells her that she’s just seeing things, and that she shouldn’t be following him around anyways.

“I never realized the perfect school princess has a voyeurism fetish. Are you going to stalk me for your  _ kicks _ ?” He scowls at her.

“I’m trying to protect you! There’s nothing at that reservoir, why are you so  _ obsessed _ with it?” She scolds him, and he shakes her grip off of him.

“You’re not my  _ mother _ ,” he says to her.

“I told you – it’s just rumors. Leave it be.” She doesn’t back down. He hates her.

He feels her  **watching** him for the rest of the day.

Out of precaution, Vilem doesn’t go to the reservoir for about a week and a half.

With Misha watching him, he heads straight home under the comfort of his plain black umbrella. His mother starts coming home for once, and as she sees him head home straight from school, she’s so happy. She grins from ear to ear, as she’s just so happy to see her son, as she plants kisses on his cheeks. She pretends to be the strong, faithful matriarch to a family that doesn’t even exist. The world's a stage, and men and women are the players – but there is no audience here except a strong drink.

On Friday, she  **_decides_ ** she’s going to make him his favorite meal for being such a good boy. The smell of  stroganoff wafts in the air of their small, sad kitchen.  He finds himself not caring at all, as he pushes his food back and forth with his fork. His mother rambles on for minutes on end at the head of the dinner table, telling him all about her day and her job. She completely ignores he’s not eating his food.

She doesn’t mention his sister  _ or _ his father.

Away from rumors and gossip and classmates, Vilem takes his lunch to the rooftop on a sunny day.

He lays flat on the roof, lazily watching the clouds roll by. It’s quiet up here, with only the sounds of nature and the distant humming of industrial fans in the background. Ever since a freshman had committed suicide up on the roof a few years ago, it had become an unpopular place to eat. No one wanted to eat in a place that reminded them of  _ death _ .

Yet, he can’t help but to slowly think of the reservoir – of its plants and mosquitoes, and the comforting smell of rust. The way the water ripples, and how far such ripples go - even to the ends of brick and mortar. He starts to think about Agnit, and how he’s doing. Is he going hungry? Did he find something to eat? What did he do all day? What secrets did _ he _ find interesting? Slowly, he starts to realize that he wants to see him again.

For the first time in his life, he  **_misses_ ** someone.

And it’s such a strange feeling.

His sister calls for the first time in a  _ long _ time.

It’s been so long since he’s heard her voice. Even through the static of the phone receiver, he remembers faint, hazy memories of the same voice in the kitchen. She would cook breakfast for the both of them when their parents weren’t there. She’d cook dinner when they would go out and fight. She wants to see them; she wants to see her little brother, she  _ begs _ over the phone. All his sister wants to do is come  **_home_ ** and be a  **_family_ ** again. Vilem is unable to match her grief – he can’t feel anything for her.

His mother takes the phone. His mother is crying and yelling at her, saying that she has ruined everything, saying that she’s ruined their entire lives. “Do you know what they say about me and your father?! Do you know what they say about you?! Of your brother?!”

His mother screams at her. Her mother screams that it’s her  **fault** that her father had been cheating on her; it was something that just came out of the blue for Vilem. It explains his wayward nature, it explains why he’s not home. But it is  _ so _ out of the blue for him, he can’t  _ process _ what is happening. “You were my  **responsibility** to teach right from wrong! And you throw it all away! Because you didn’t want to listen!”

“It’s all your fault! It’s always been your fault! Alexia, you are a  **disgrace** to this family! You drive your father away, you shame me, and you make your brother think terribly of you…..”

Vilem can’t  **take** it.

He locks himself in the bathroom and waits for it to be over.

On the very next visit, Vilem asks Agnit about love, about human emotion, about safety, about family – about all the things Vilem realizes is  _ stupid _ to ask about. As far as Agnit is aware, he has always existed. He doesn’t remember being born. He doesn’t know what love might feel like, and he knows nothing about family. It is  _ stupid _ to ask him about this, because he has no real frame of reference. He does not understand the lack of these things, like Vilem might. Still, Agnit finds this outburst  _ curious _ . He simply tells him he supposes the Earth gave birth to him and tossed him out into the world alone. Though, Agnit does not see this as a terrible  **fate** ; he is, by all accounts, a  _ devilish _ creature. Perhaps he is not meant to exist, but he does so anyways. He is happy with his lot in life.

“But you…. You are awfully  **brave** , aren’t you?” He chuckles under his breath, looming over Vilem. “You are asking this for a specific reason. Is there something you perhaps lack…..?” He laughs.

There  _ are _ things Vilem lacks. He lacks a real direction in life. He lacks a real family. He lacks affection and love from those he needs it the most, and only receives the barest amount from those he hates. He’s opening up to Agnit, in ways that are likely not very  _ wise _ . In ways that are  _ dangerous _ . He finds himself desperate enough not to care.

“And that’s what makes me a fool,” Vilem says plainly, as he matches Agnit’s gaze. “Because I’m here, trying to find something in  _ you _ .”

“Perhaps. But I have to admit…. I’m rather curious as well,” he whispers on Vilem’s lips. It rings in his ears, and vibrates in his chest. He grips whatever he can of Agnit and kisses him back. He kisses him back as they fall into the water. He kisses him back like he’s the only thing that  **matters** .

He  **stays** .

“You want to know something, guys? About that monster in the reservoir you all love to gossip about? It’s  _ trash _ . It’s stupid. It’s not even that scary, because I came across it last night, and I beat it up!” A male classmate with red glasses proudly proclaims in the middle of lunch. He puffs his chest out as he brags about how easy of a fight it was, and how dumb the monster really was. “It really didn’t know its head from its ass. What a weak monster! It’s like it didn’t deserve to  **exist** .”

_ Perhaps I shouldn’t exist, but I exist anyways. Ah, a monster such as me no doubt has a terrible fate awaiting…. But I do not care. My life is enough. _

__

These things shouldn’t matter, he tells himself. Agnit is happy with his life, he had said so himself. Agnit would say he was caring about something that did not matter at all. Yet, Vilem is full of rage. How dare that idiot think he could even stand a second against him? How dare he say Agnit doesn’t deserve to exist? He remembers his lips on his, and he stands up.

“The monster isn’t trash,” he says.

“What did you say, Vilem? I can’t hear your  _ piss baby voice _ .” The classmate mocks, as his crowd laughs behind him.

“I said the monster in the reservoir isn’t trash!” He yells.

Everyone is laughing at him.  _ Who do you think you are, Vilem? Do you think we respect you? _ The leader mocks him further, coming right up to Vilem’s face. “So what? You in  **love** with it?” He says to his face.

Vilem doesn’t remember what happens next.

All he knows is that when he’s snapped out of it, the leader of the group is profusely bleeding from his nose. It’s broken, and the skin is spilt, and he can see the cartilage. He’s barely conscious, bleeding from both his nostrils and covered in heavy bruising. Misha, ever the dutiful class president, shoves him away as she does basic first aid on his wounded classmate. She yells for action to be taken, and the teacher calls the paramedics. In the meantime, she’s left taking care of him until help arrives. She looks up at him, and his bloody fist and shirt. His knuckles are bruised and sore. She stares as if she does not  **know** him.

“What  _ happened  _ to you?” She whispers. She’s  _ afraid _ .

He does not answer. He only watches as his classmates bleeds all over the floor, and as Misha looks at him for answers he cannot provide.

He feels  **nothing** .

Vilem is sitting on the floor of the living room as her mother puts down the phone. The TV is on, but it’s playing  **_static_ ** .

The school calls about what had happened this morning. As soon as she hangs up, she’s  _ furious _ . She kicks the kitchen trash can away as she starts to yell at him. She yells about his future, and about everything he’s wasting away. Her face is red. “Who do you think  _ pays _ for that stupid prep school anyways? It’s your fucking momma, that’s who! I pay for everything in this fucking house and you want to  _ jeopardize _ it? Do you want to become like your  **sister** ? Vilem, you’re all I have left!’

She slaps him. “Say it. Say you won’t do it again!”

“I won’t do it again…” He responds.

She slaps him again. “Say it again!”

“I won’t do it again!” He responds again.

But no matter how much he begs, pleads, or repeats what his mother  _ demands _ of him, she doesn’t stop hitting him until his nose is bleeding. She doesn’t stop until his cheeks are black and purple. She does not stop until he cannot speak anymore, until he stares at his own blood splatters on the carpet of the living room floor. It’s reached the windows, and the walls. Her own hand is bruised and bloody, and when he stops responding,  _ this _ is when she stops and realizes what she’s done. In horror, she goes to the sink and pulls the handle all the back to scrub away her skin. She does not look at him as she shakes to make dinner. She makes  _ no _ motion to help him.

“What… what would you like to eat, sweetie?” She asks, as if she hadn’t beaten him within an inch of his life. She’s  _ trembling _ .

He doesn’t respond.

“Ah, that’s right. Chicken soup. That used to be your favorite as a child…”

He cannot feel anything anymore.

After a few minutes, he is able to find the strength to stand up. His mother takes out her good gloves and cleaning supplies to wipe away the blood from the walls and the floor. “Oh, this carpet is ruined,” she mumbles as she tries to scrub it off. She takes a look at him before he opens his bedroom door.

“Vilem, go to the bathroom, won’t you dear? There’s a first aid kit. You know you shouldn’t pick fights with other boys,” she mutters, and he goes to the bathroom instead. He patches his face up as best he can with the basic first aid kit in the cabinet, and tries not to hiss in pain when he finishes, and heads back to bed.

He wakes up at midnight to a cold chicken noodle soup, and an empty house.

He sneaks out to the reservoir at midnight. He tries not to hurt himself climbing out the window. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He knows very well why he’s doing this. He stumbles up the mountain path, and sighs about his empty hands. He didn’t bring an offering this time. He wonders if Agnit would mind him being up here so late, with nothing to give him. He wonders what Agnit must be thinking now. He wonders if he’ll even  _ care _ .

Agnit is already above the water, as he stares up at the full moon. The moonlight reflects off his fine grey fur and black hair, making him seem like a fucked up angel in the dark of the night. His yellow eyes seem to glow as their glances meet, and as Vilem collapses onto the ground. The crick-crack of Agnit’s shifting bones play out as a beat for his heart to follow. He looks up at him, as Agnit kneels closer to him.

“What trouble have you gotten yourself in now?” Agnit asks him, and Vilem doesn’t answer. He can’t. His voice is still sore. He mouths that he is sorry. He wants to say he wanted to see him. He wants to say many things he can’t say right now.

Agnit kisses him, and sighs. “You are such  _ miserable _ creatures. No doubt this was born of arrogance.” Agnit scolds him, but it is soft. It is gentle. It is the first time Vilem hears something close to love in his voice. He wonders about what his classmate had accused him of – that Vilem was in  **love** with a monster. Vilem does not care. 

Agnit takes him into his arms, and carries him deep into a hidden part of the reservoir, where brick and concrete meet with solid ground. There is a small cave here, large enough to host Agnit. He’s made a nest out here, out of leaves and filthy animal furs. The scratches on the walls are many and scattered, and in the dark, he can see the starch white of bleached bones. He carefully lays Vilem down in the nest, and covers him with the furs to keep him warm. Vilem tries to speak, but coughs instead. He can’t get up anymore.

“Shh,” Agnit whispers. “Do not hurt yourself further. You  **trust** me, do you not?”

Vilem nods. Agnit is the only person he trusts right now.

“Then rest. I will hunt breakfast in the morning, and you’ll eat and feel better,” Agnit tells him, and Vilem believes him.

The last thing he hears is the shifting crick-crack of bones, as Agnit dives beneath the water.

The first thing he sees is Agnit giving him shredded fish with a mysterious green paste.

Faint shadows loom over them as the sun slowly rises over the horizon, burning into his eyes as he rubs the sleep out. The branches and leaves of the canopy above them dance in the gentle breeze, as the morning train hums in the distance. The tracks send vibrations down cracked concrete pillars, almost rumbling the earth below. Even as far off as it is, he feels it here too, as Agnit helps him upright and he eats with his hands. Insects chirp softly in their burrows, moss sticks to his teeth, and beyond the pool Agnit calls home, frogs call out to one another.

The second thing he notices is that his face still feels like shit. Noticeably less so, but it still pulses with a dull ache he knows will rise and fall – there will be better days, and there will be bad days. And the bad days will be so much worse, because he knows his wounds will just be torn open again. For now, he’s fairly sure there’s a thin film of….  _ something _ .

“What did you do to my face,” Vilem asks in-between bites.

“I washed off the blood with the cleanest water I could find,” Agnit says. “Made another herbal paste to help with any swelling and infection.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

“Now finish up so I can walk you home,” Agnit jokes.

“Like that’s even possible,” he laughs as Agnit bends down, and kisses him. It almost seems like a scene from a movie – alone together, they face the reality of this cruel world. But even in a brave world with such people in it, they’re able to find shelter in hollowed out places. This precious pocket of time where they can simply  _ be _ , and be nothing else.

And for a moment, things feel like they’d be okay.

After the fight, the kids in his class give him a wide berth; they avoid him in fear, nervous glances always directed past his line of sight. The kid with the broken nose survives, his broken glasses now defiantly tucked away in the front pocket of his jacket – a trophy, he supposes, a victory in it of itself; the cross of the messiah. The less sensible kids – the boys who gather under an imagery creed of cracked glass lenses and bleeding teeth – start to bully him in earnest. The boy in red gives them  _ orders _ . They make a mess of his desk. They write all sorts of things. They call him a loser, at first, and then a bastard. A good for nothing, and then they call Vilem a monster; a monster no one could ever love. Someone who deserves to die.

A monster in love with another monster, they say, and Vilem doesn’t care if they think that. So  _ what _ if he’s in love with Agnit? So  _ what _ if he’s in love with a man-eating, murderous creature? So  _ what _ if the only place they can exist in this world is hidden away by half-sunken bricks, in dirty pools of water where all that come to die rest at cracked concrete bottoms?

Agnit is the only being who can  **see** him. He doesn’t care if he’ll die.

Misha acts as a barrier; the great protector between the violent demon that Vilem has become, and the rest of the class. She stands between the great chasms of the abyss, keeping the peace. It’s fairly disgusting, he thinks, as if this  _ brave _ little mother hen could defend anyone or even herself, barely being able to handle a knife to cut a damn  _ vegetable _ . For all her fake bravado, he sees  _ through _ her – try as she might to stand as proud and tall as she can, she still yet trembles, and dares not to look back.

They make a mess of his textbooks one morning. They’re all on the floor; some are ripped to shreds, others have pages missing, and one book has its ink smeared to the point of illegibility. A white lily in a plain white vase is the only witness here - in the very back of the class where they deemed it worthy enough to contain him - as he says not a single word, and bends down to pick the books back up. A few scribbles on certain pages taunt him, saying that if he’s smart enough, he can just figure it out  _ without _ the books. Vilem supposes he’ll just have to go to the library. They tend to write more terrible answers in the textbooks anyways.

As he shuffles ruined books back onto his desk, petals flow in on a gentle breeze through the opened window; they hover over his hands with the stench of death and decay and moss clinging to wooden pillars. He holds them in his hands, cradling them so gingerly as his heart swells, and his eyes are cast toward the direction of the abandoned reservoir. Though he knows Agnit would never be so  _ romantic _ , he can’t help but imagine Agnit blowing the petals onto the breeze - like wishes from dandelion seeds.

He smiles.

It’s a bright day out.

He sinks beneath the murky water as he kisses Agnit, and wraps his arms around his neck. The sunlight breaks out in spots, and Vilem is only really aware of what’s in  _ front _ of him and  _ around _ him. It’s a bit of a blessing, how dirty the water is – it helps hide them in the day, though he can’t exactly say he’d  _ prefer _ to be in said water. But he also can’t say he really  _ cares _ in the moment either, not when Agnit kisses him back, as a black tongue sweeps across his bottom lip and slips inside.

Agnit  **tastes** of death. He tastes of death, of rot, of decay; he tastes like all the things personified in a poem by Edgar Alan Poe. It is  _ dangerously _ bitter and disgusting, yet he  _ craves _ it. He wants to count all of Agnit’s teeth with his tongue. He wants them to just be like  _ this _ for as long as forever. Every time Agnit even slightly pulls away, Vilem finds himself chasing after, trying desperately to keep him  _ there _ . He just laughs, teasing him at how greedy he could be. But every single time, Agnit indulges him like it’s the first time.

He’s lost in the moment. He can feel Agnit’s heart beating in his chest. “Did you kill that little girl?” He whispers against Agnit’s lips.

“Yes,” he responds.

“Will you kill me?” Vilem asks again.

“Perhaps,” he chuckles.

Cats often played with their food, he thought, as he remembered that one conversation he had so long ago. Agnit might see him as a companion, but ultimately, he must see Vilem as prey. Maybe it’s all been a game Vilem has been seduced into playing, desperate to find anything to hold onto. But he just kisses Agnit  _ harder _ .

“If you desire to die here. I cannot go chasing after you,” Agnit says.  _ Right, Agnit is getting old. He makes too much noise _ , he thinks.

“Do you love me?” Vilem asks suddenly.

“Now, where did that come from?” He chuckles again. But the only thing Vilem does is repeat himself, as serious as he was the first time.

“Do you love me?” He asks again. He looks at Agnit, and pleads for a yes. For  _ anything _ .

“Perhaps. I am growing fond of you. And you…. You would go to the ends of the Earth for me. That’s how the saying goes, yes?” He asks, and Vilem nods.

“I cannot say if what I feel is what a human would describe as love. I have never  _ known _ such a thing. I will likely  _ never _ know such a thing, so perhaps, I will always be  _ unable _ to love you back.” With every calm word spoken, Vilem’s heart drops further in his chest. It’s stupid, he thinks, to expect Agnit to behave like a human when he clearly isn’t. It’s stupid, he thinks, to think a monster  _ could _ be human. So, all he was….. Vilem is just a  _ distraction _ .

But still, Agnit kisses him again. “And yet even still… “He doesn’t finish his sentence as he drags the both of them deeper in the water.

_ I’ll pretend to love you back.  _

They think they’re funny, these classmates of his.

He knows he bought lunch from school earlier this morning; he didn’t have enough time to make his own meal. He remembers exactly where he placed it under his desk – next to the wall – and it had been there until the period just before lunch. They steal his food, and leave him with nothing but a note that’s passed to him just before lunch starts.

__

_ Why don’t you ask your monster to cook for you? _

Whatever.

The ever dutiful class president who makes it her job to look after every student in the classroom is furious. She tries to take his lunch back; she yells at the group responsible, but they just happily  _ ignore _ her, saying that he’s better off not eating anyways. They take out of his lunch – just a simple ham sandwich – and toss it out the window, likely on top of some poor unsuspecting passerby. There goes about two dollars and twenty cents worth of food.

“Ugh, I can’t believe you! How would you like it if someone just threw out your lunch like that?” She scolds them.

The boy with the fixed red glasses laughs. “ _ I _ had to handle not being able to properly eat for at least a week, Misha! Surely, Vilem can handle a  _ day _ . Stop fucking defending him! He doesn’t need it!”

_ Try a month _ , he idly thinks. The shadow of a monster that is his father, a broken bottle in hand.

“Just save it, man. Everyone knows Misha goes for crazy – and if you really didn’t want trouble, you’d just stay away. I mean, we all know what happened to your  _ last _ boyfriend.” Another kid laughs.

Her face, for once, is silent and unreadable. She says nothing as she takes his hand, and they make the quiet trek up to the rooftop.

Out of the kindness of her heart, she shares her lunch with him. She splits in half a plain meal of rice, potatoes, and meat, and gives it to him. He takes a bite. The rice is fairly dry, and the meat is a little tough, but for someone who doesn’t cook that often, it’s a good first try.

“You’ve gotten better at cooking. This is pretty edible,” he says, surprised. She doesn’t respond.

As he eats, he thinks he hates her cooking. He loves her cooking. It’s better than whatever his mother makes; it tastes like ash in his mouth. It’s better than eating nothing, but he’s been having ideas on how to hunt things for a while now. Maybe with Agnit’s help, he could catch his own meal. Maybe with a little more practice, Misha could catch herself a new boyfriend, he jokes to himself.

“With a bit more practice, you could catch yourself a new boyfriend,” he laughs. There’s silence. “….Misha?”

She doesn’t look at him.

Her knuckles are ghost white; she grips the bowl as if she could shatter it. She grips the bowl like it’s the only thing keeping her ashore, anchored to solid ground. She does not dare look at him, and he doesn’t look back.

They eat the rest of their meal in silence.

She’s always tried to convey herself as strong; solid as steel, capable of withstanding any sick, twisted thing they could ever say to the girl who demanded  _ order _ . And yet, their words have flown like an arrow, piercing directly at her heart, leaving behind shattered remains of a girl who once was, and who is no longer here. When he is finished, he gives her stuff back, and goes to walk down the stairs. She doesn’t look back to watch him go.

He wonders what happened to her boyfriend.

One morning, he steals a knife from his mother’s kitchen. He had told Agnit about his plan to help him out with a hunt, and Agnit had laughed; he asked what Vilem  _ thought _ he was going to be able to do.  _ Without their toys _ , he explained,  _ humans are rather  _ **_weak_ ** _ creatures _ . Vilem simply told him he would steal a knife from his mother’s kitchen, and help finish a hunt off. Agnit laughed again, and told him he was welcome to try, but didn’t think anything would come of it. He looks at his reflection across cold steel, and takes a deep breath.

In truth, he doesn’t count this as  _ stealing _ , as he shoves it deep into his bag.

You can’t steal from someone who wasn’t  _ there _ .

Agnit is surprised to see Vilem with a knife.

“I said I would help,” he calmly says.

“So, you have,” Agnit hums. “Wait here.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but thinks better of it; he goes to sit by stone shores as Agnit gives him a look –  _ stay there _ – and crouches down into the brush, moving steadily ever forward. The normal _ crick-crack-click _ of bones jutting against grey skin are softened by careful movement; hands and jaws are clenched tightly, as the very last glimpses of him are swallowed by the forest. It must take an immense amount of effort, he thinks, as the sounds fade into the horizon. He wanted to protest, but he knows he can’t sneak around for shit – he can’t imagine being three times the size of a normal person made it any easier.

For an eternity, all is quiet. He hears insects chirp their burrows underneath the earth; the frog calls out into the air from atop rotting lily pads floating in pools. The wind flutters through the leaves of the canopy – whistles of tree branches and birds. He thinks he hears that familiar siren song – that  _ crick-crack-click _ – but it fades, and he sees nothing. All he sees is the sunlight creating motely patterns on rocks, and dirt, and him; the sun shines deep into this patch of forest, in an abandoned reservoir.

He’s getting nervous.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

God, why did he think this was a good idea?

Agnit appears from the bush with a wounded deer; he glances at holes where talons dig into skin, blood leaking from open wounds. It stains the fur, the flesh, the talons, the dirt; he swallows as Agnit holds the deer down, and instructs him on where to cut. He quietly laments the lack of a quicker option, but guns would be too noisy, wouldn’t they? Someone would hear them. Where would he even  _ get _ a gun? He grips his knife, knuckles pale white. “I don’t even know the hunting laws of this city,” he says. “Does this city even have hunting laws?”

“Undoubtedly,” Agnit says. “Humans love their laws.”

He stabs into the neck of the deer. It’s harder than he thought it would be – it takes a lot more force than he thought it would take. There’s a resistance in the muscles that feel like slogging through thick mud. There’s the thought that he’s killing an actual living being. He remembers some old borrowed novel from a time in his past – no doubt collecting dust in a box – that says  _ the first kill will always change you _ . He digs his knife in further. Agnit looks at him.

The deer  _ jumps _ .

The knife drops from his hands, frozen in fear. Agnit acts quickly, holding onto the defiant dying deer with all his strength, opening his mouth and biting as hard as he could. Serrated yellow teeth tear flesh asunder, ripping into muscles, and veins and bones. There’s blood. There’s so much  _ blood _ . It gets everywhere; it gets on the ground, it gets on Agnit, in mouth and teeth, and on Vilem’s white shirt. He has a bloody red shirt now. As the animal gives a last guttural gargling groan, he picks up the knife and swallows. He isn’t sure if he’s breathing, but he thinks he must be.

“Wash yourself off in one of the pools,” Agnit tells him.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

He scrubs his bloody shirt against the rocks, and watches as the muddy waters bloom into a dark crimson. He can hear Agnit mauling at the carcass of the deer behind him, and tries not to think about it. He tries not to think about it being ripped open, organs and blood spilling out like a fountain. Absentmindedly, he tells him he wants to stay the night, since they were able to kill that deer. “Someone has to cook it for you,” he mutters, and Agnit chuckles at such a domestic suggestion.

“Do as you please,” he simply says.

After a few minutes of searching – and  _ much _ effort – Vilem stars a fire in the driest part of the reservoir he can find, where the humidity and moisture in the air wouldn’t suffocate the small smoldering embers. He rubs sticks together as fast as he can, and blows until a small fire erupts from grass and decaying wood. He cuts through bloody meat, pierces them with a stick and sets them over the small fire to roast.

“I’m affecting you, aren’t I?” Agnit chuckles as Vilem lays his head on his chest. “You wouldn’t have killed so easily before, would you?” Vilem doesn’t think about it. His mind is blank.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he whispers as his eyes keep watch over the meat.

Agnit laughs again.

He’s  _ burning _ .

Vilem feels Agnit’s tongue on his neck, as blood trickles down from his shoulder. He’s only  _ vaguely _ aware of where his shirt and jacket might be, as Agnit’s teeth slightly graze the skin of his throat. There are bite marks most places – there are bite marks everywhere Vilem  _ begged _ for them. He was asked if he was really sure about this, and he said  _ yes _ . He said he didn’t care, as he kissed him deeply, if he looked like he was ravaged and fucked like an  _ animal _ . “Let the world know,” he pleads and begs, “let the whole world know I’m  _ yours _ .”

And for how rough he was elsewhere, for all the bites and the bleeding, he is _ so _ careful around the throat.

_ I’ll pretend I love you back. _

Agnit has him in the palm of his hand, calloused digits rubbing the throbbing skin of his cock. Vilem is so close, it’s  _ unfair _ . But every time he tries to reach his peak, Agnit pulls away, denying him release every single time. He whines, tries to have some form of  _ contact _ , but Agnit only laughs at him. “Patience is a virtue,” he whispers, and Vilem has half a mind to tell him to shove that patience where the sun doesn't shine. But Agnit bites him again, and he moans into his shoulder.

He’s in a haze, as he tastes his own blood on Agnit’s lips. He’s  _ burning _ , and he’s  _ losing _ it. He  _ begs _ , he  _ pleads _ , he  _ prays _ to Agnit, this new god above him, to let him  _ go _ . And just as Vilem thinks he’s being driven insane, Agnit gives him one last squeeze, and Vilem cums,  _ hard _ . The intensity throws him in for a loop as he grips onto him tightly – his new anchor to keep him from going adrift in the sea. Breathlessly, he rides out his orgasm, making a mess both on him and on the ground. He’d almost feel sorry, but it’s all Agnit’s fault anyways. And as the moment fades out, he takes deep breath as he sinks on the ground. “Fuck, he whispers.

Agnit swipes off some cum off his cock and licks it off his fingers.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he says again.

It’s the hottest thing Vilem’s ever witnessed.

Everyone is  _ staring _ at him.

A thousand eyes burn into red and purple bruises on his skin; they litter his neck and shoulders, causing subtle gasps of horror to emit from various mouths as they crane their necks back to look. As he does his work, he can hear what they’re saying about him, in hushed, frightened whispers. They think he got into a fight. They think he got into a fight with someone even  _ worse  _ than he was, and a few girls  _ shudder  _ at the thought – the thought that Vilem, so ready and  _ willing _ to  _ beat _ someone to  _ death _ , could be  _ so _ riddled with marks, bites, and bruises.

The lenses of his memory are dyed red, as he glances out the window.

His blood, a thin stream, rolling off his shoulder; the splatter of the deer, painting everything – it clung to Agnit’s teeth as he ripped flesh and bone apart, to the sound of a knife hitting the ground. An open ribbed cage, organs and blood and meat spilling out onto the ground like a fountain; the red hot heat between the both of them as Agnit held him in his hands, drowning in muddy waters that bloomed in crimson. His cheeks flush, and he hides a small smile behind his hand. As he glances over to the reservoir, he eagerly waits for the next time they’ll meet.

“God, he looks like he was attacked by a wild _dog_ ,” a girl scoffs.

He does not regret asking Agnit to bite him.

Amid a sea of clear plastic umbrellas, one rainy afternoon – Misha offers to walk him home.

He declines.

She walks him home anyways.

Soaked leather loafers step in time with his, marching through puddles, and valleys and shallows alike. She sticks to him like a shadow, never once letting him slip from her sight. Each time he tries to duck or turn to the mountain path, she grabs his sleeve, and with an even tone, she asks him where he’s going. She stares him down with icy blue eyes as he gives no answer. The mother hen has finally come home to roost, it seems, and she isn’t planning on letting him go.

But isn’t it strange?

He looks at her.

She isn’t wearing an orange clip.

He glances toward the mountain path; he looks up at broken stone steps, jutting tree roots and muddy waters collecting at basin bottoms, made of concrete and steel. He hates the smell of the rain. It makes everything terrible, he thinks bitterly. Yet, he longs for such terrible, horrendous decaying smells of rust and rot all the same. He knows he won’t be rid of her today, as the wind blows southward. He turns his back, and lets her walk him home. She opens her mouth. He hates it.

“I had a boyfriend, a year ago,” she starts. “We had liked each other since middle school. He was funny, strong, and sweet – and he never stopped smiling, no matter what happened. I loved him. I loved him as much as I could love him.”

She stops at the corner, looking up at the grey sky.

“But then, he started going to the abandoned reservoir on the mountain path. It didn’t surprise me. He loved supernatural things. Ghosts, demons, cryptids, Bigfoot – you name it, he knew it. He would even go on this forum where they’d discuss online rumors. There were the regulars, friends of his he would chat with sometimes,” she sighs. “And then there was a girl. She made a post. She said something about seeing a monster at the reservoir one night, and being frightened, so he went to go check it for himself.”

“The more and more he went up to the reservoir, the more violent and withdrawn he became. We didn’t hang out like we used to. He was always so tired, so bitter, so angry. It was like I never knew him,” she says, and she looks straight at him.

“And then, his younger brother died. And that was the last time I saw him.”

Her umbrella drops.

“You’re changing,” she accuses him with an icy glare, as the rain pours over her. “You wouldn’t have beaten that one kid in our class half to  _ death _ . He wouldn’t have – you’re changing. What’s happening? What’s at that  _ damned _ reservoir?” She demands of him, pulling at his sleeve.

He pulls his arm back, and tries to grab her umbrella. “You’re just going to get sick, Misha. There’s nothing at the reservoir,” he tries calming her down. “Besides, what are the class going to think when they find out their dutiful class president likes to be a stalker in her spare time?”

She kicks the umbrella aside, and grabs his arm again. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s at the damned reservoir!”

“I told you, there’s  _ nothing _ !” He yells back.

“There’s something there, something you’re hiding, why else would you –“

He snaps.

He pushes her down onto the pavement, in a puddle of mud, dirt, and piss. She scrapes both of her hands on the way down, stumbling to catch herself before she lands on concrete, ruining that neat, pristine uniform of hers. She hisses in pain, and he kicks her umbrella to her. After a moment, she slowly looks up to him, eyes wide in fear. He takes one look back, before he leaves her there and walks the rest of the way to apartment, and closes the door.

She keeps staring at him until the horizon swallows him whole.

They return to their little nest in the woods – the cave hidden in the reservoir. The sun sets as they kiss, and it feels just like the first time. But  _ this _ time, there is no pulling away, no tugging back; Agnit’s black tongue sweeps at his bottom lip, slips inside and  _ stays _ . For however long their breaths let him – a little longer for Agnit, a little shorter for him – they stay open,  _ connected _ . He counts all of Agnit’s teeth with his tongue, getting pricked as a reward for his efforts. Agnit laughs, but Vilem doesn’t care, as he spits out blood and saliva – he wanted to do it anyway. The taste of death is dangerously  _ bitte _ r and  _ disgusting _ , and yet he  _ craves _ it. He  _ wants _ it. He  _ needs _ it. He wants it like nothing else.

Talons find their way under his shirt, careful not to rip the fabric as it’s pulled upwards. The anticipation is  _ exciting _ , as he feels himself hardening in his pants. He grinds against this monster of his, and Agnit whispers that patience is a virtue. Vilem tells him that this time, he  _ will _ bite him. Agnit laughs, and he feels it deep within his chest, resonating against his rib cage and heart. “I’d like to see you try,” he dares as a finger pad flicks one of his nipples. Vilem gasps, and he’s determined to make good on his promise. His shirt is tossed off, to be forgotten about and found later – likely dirty with holes.

“Can I touch you….down  _ there _ ?” He asks, curious.  _ As male as nature can classify me _ – that’s what he had said, hadn’t it?

“Down there….? Whatever do you mean?” He teases, with a small grin.

Vilem flushes. “….I,” he stammers. “I want to see if you have a dick. Is that better?”

“Go ahead,” Agnit smirks.

Vilem feels around – down there. Ever the jokester, Agnit starts telling him whether he’s warmer or cooler, depending on where he moves his hands. Vilem glares up at him; this is just  _ ridiculous _ . This is the first time he’s ever really  _ touched _ him – he wants to be  _ serious _ about it. Maybe it’s even a little childish to say he wants it to be more  _ special _ ; this secret moment in the early twilight hours, the fading sunlight scattering between canopy leaves, just between the two of them. “You have a surprising amount of fur down there, okay?” He says, a little frustrated with the playful jabs.

Soon enough, he finds it.

Agnit most certainly has a dick.

Beneath dark tufts of fur, he finds a small slit. He rubs against it with his hand, which makes Agnit’s breath hitch – just for a second, a quick shallow breath. And as he keeps rubbing it, something…  _ unfurls _ slowly, from inside. It’s – it’s not what he expects, as he looks down, but Vilem isn’t even sure  _ what  _ he was expecting. It’s large – larger than any human dick he’s ever seen. It’s as dark as Agnit’s limbs, with a slight glossy sheen. It’s consistently thick from the base, slowly tapering off at the end. It almost seems to… squirm, as Vilem holds it in his hands.

“….Can I try something?” He asks, a little nervous.

“Go ahead,” Agnit nods.

Vilem  _ thinks _ he knows what he’s doing; he’s seen videos before, briefly, though it wasn’t  _ quite _ like this. He doubts any amount of porn could have prepared him for this moment. The longer he holds it in his hands, he realizes it’s surprisingly warm, too – almost hot, even, pulsating in his palm. As he takes a small breath, part of him wonders if this was a bad idea (one of many he’s had this year, it seems), but he tells himself he just has to copy what he’s seen.

He sticks out his tongue and gives the tip a tentative lick.

He tries not to scrunch up his face too much. It’s – it’s  _ salty _ . Agnit’s dick is salty. Why is it to so  _ salty _ ? He glances up; Agnit only looks down on him with a small grin, waiting for his next move. He blushes, and takes another small breath. He puts the tip of the cock fully into his mouth, the inexplicable heat searing at his tongue. He goes a little lower after a few moments, gripping at Agnit’s hips to steady himself. He takes as much as he can bear, wrapping his lips around the shaft as he starts to serve this new god. Agnit grunts lowly in appreciation, and –

On a meatier party of the cock, Vilem  _ bites _ , causing Agnit’s hip to buck.

“You little monster,” he growls.

Vilem grins, or as much as he can with a dick in his mouth.

Asking for forgiveness, he slides his tongue up the shaft and swirls around the head. Being forgiven, Agnit groans once more, talons digging into the earth.

And in a way, it’s beautiful, as he willingly drowns in a salty sea that reeks of death.

It’s beautiful that in this moment, he’s here with him, bobbing his head up and down as Agnit makes deep, throaty noises that rumble within his chest. Talons sink further into the earth as Vilem swallows just a little more, goes a little deeper, and Agnit almost thrust into his mouth. He grips onto him as much as he can, as the smell of rust and rot surrounds them, and as the night shrouds them in darkness, he’s able to see nothing and hear nothing but Agnit in front of him. It’s wondrous, it’s glorious, and he loves him. With one last growl, Agnit comes.

Vilem isn’t able to swallow all of it, so the last spurt ends up on his face.

For some reason, it smells sickly sweet.

Vilem admits he’s rather nervous – excited, sure, but also very nervous – as his heart races in his chest, beating against his skin. He’s laid bare on Agnit’s lap, clothes tossed haphazardly somewhere else – likely to be found dirty, with holes in them. Though the slight chill of the evening has set in, causing him to shudder, Agnit is  _ warm _ – heat radiates off his skin as they press against each other. And it’s only ever so easy to tell Agnit is as hard as a rock again as he feels his cock on his backside; there’s that same inexplicable searing heat, still slick with salvia and somewhat  _ squirming _ . He takes a deep breath as Agnit positions his cock at his entrance, and then proceeds to  _ prod _ at it. This goes on for a few minutes, and Vilem whines about it, until –

It’s  _ in _ .

He grips onto Agnit’s shoulders – knuckles ghost white – as the cock enters as slow as it can go. It’s such a strange feeling, he thinks, as he tries to settle and breathe. It doesn’t quite hurt, it doesn’t quite feel good; it’s such an alien sensation, feeling so  _ full _ . And it’s so hot, even more so when he took Agnit into his mouth. He thinks Agnit must run on coals like a  _ furnace _ , as he takes another deep breath, his arms wrapped around Agnit’s shoulders. It takes a few more minutes, but he nods as he feels okay enough for Agnit to start moving.

It’s slow to start at first – again – but even slowly, Vilem can’t help but feel like he’s being jerked about five feet forward. He holds on with all the strength he can muster, gasping every time Agnit manages to hit a certain spot. He doesn’t think he can be stretched out any further than he is, but somehow, Agnit always finds a way. He mumbles prayers into Agnit’s chest, devout and begging, for him to go a little faster, a little harder, he  _ wants _ -

“Can I touch myself?” He asks, breathlessly. Agnit nods.

Vilem strokes his cock to the same rhythm as Agnit’s thrusts, as he goes faster still, filing Vilem up to the brim. His hands move at a feverish pace, as he gasps and moans into Agnit’s shoulder, pious in his desire for more and more and  _ more _ . He keeps Agnit’s name on his lips; a lone whisper, his sign of devotion to his god, worshipping every second of this. It almost feels like it’s been an eternity, falling into the same heavenly motions, and then, Agnit comes inside him and bites down his shoulder. Vilem comes right after, making a mess all over their stomachs and his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees blood trickling down his arm.

He lets out a shaky sigh as Agnit gently leaves him, cum slowly dripping out onto the ground. That searing heat slowly dissipates, and he’s left with the chill of the night, and strangely enough, he almost feels empty – like a part of him is incomplete somehow, as he rests against his god’s chest. He knows his legs aren’t going to take him anywhere else tonight; they’re like jelly as they tremble in the afterglow. “I can’t,” he sighs. “I can’t be the first time you’ve done this.”

Agnit chuckles, as he holds Vilem close. “You care about things that don’t matter.

Icy blue eyes stare at him amid a sea of clear plastic umbrellas, one rainy afternoon.

Soaked leather loafers march through puddles, shallows, and valleys; she hunts him down like an angry ghost, an afterimage – something he can’t quite see, but something he knows is always there. She keeps following him. No matter where he goes, she keeps trying to follow him. She stares him down with icy blue eyes at that same street corner with hands covered in bandages and a jacket faintly stained. When she turns her back for a split second, he runs through alleyways full of drunk men pissing on themselves. Through dumpsters and garbage fires, he climbs up a fire escape, waiting her out on the third floor of a random complex. For as stubborn as she is, the prim dutiful class president wouldn’t  _ dare _ enter such a den of sin.

He hates her, as he watches her look around once, twice, and then sigh as she walks off.

Why can’t she just  **disappear** ?

The days become a haze.

All is quiet, save for insects chirping in their burrows underneath the earth; frogs call out into the air from atop rotting lily pads floating in half-empty pools. The wind flutters through the leaves of the canopy, as birds whistle perched on tree branches. A train blows their horn in the distance. He thinks he hears that familiar siren song – crick-crack-click – even among girls in skirts on top of their desks, waving to boys below who gather in threes on the courtyards. It fades, and he sees nothing.

A heavy fog rolls into the city; the sound of a clock is the only mark of time.

Vilem isn’t sure of anything, except when he visits the reservoir. The days are starting to drag on – they blend together in the mist, obscured, lost –  _ forgotten _ . He’s starting to think he can’t really feel anything anymore, but he escapes up the mountain path, and just for a moment, things seem to be right with the world. As the fog rolls on, Agnit tells him stories of things he’s seen out in the distance; nothing to be worried about, he says.

“A new era of gods and demons, maybe?” He mutters.

“Yes,” Agnit laughs. “I’m surprised you remember.”

It breaks, and then all he sees is sunlight creating motely patterns on rock, dirt, and him; the sun shines deep into this patch of forest, in an abandoned reservoir.

He wonders what will happen next.

In some strange, twist of his fate, both his parents are home one night. His father busies himself getting drunk in his room, watching the local sports channel while his mother busies herself in the kitchen, making dinner. He sits at the kitchen table, scribbling notes for an exam he needs to take. Their doorbell rings. His mother asks him to go get it.

There’s a woman at the door.

She has a stately, mature air about her. Long dark hair frames her face and shoulders; dark eyes look at him with a small smile, as her hands rest gently in front of her. She’s accompanied by a much spunkier-looking woman – dirty blond hair shorn roughly with bandages on her fingers, and storm-grey eyes that just can’t seem to  _ settle _ . They’re both older than him, of course. Maybe the anxious woman could only be a  _ tad _ older – maybe she’s  _ only _ mid-twenties at best, but surely, the other woman beside her  _ had _ to be well into her thirties.

She’s dressed in a long-sleeved cream sweater, and a dark pencil skirt, which contrasts the woman next to her, in a pair of old overalls and a t-shirt. She’s more full-looking too – though he suspects the sweater is likely a size over, it still betrays signs of wide hips and a large bust, straining the fabric in the smallest of ways. The last time he saw her, stick thin in an old t-shirt and ripped jeans –

The pictures that used to hang on the wall, lay shattered –

“….Sister?” He whispers, with wide eyes. She hugs him.

This is his sister. The same faint memories of an older girl helping him with his homework; a voice that would sound out in the kitchen, and she’d cook for them when their parents weren’t there. She’d cook dinner when they would go out and fight – the same dark hair pulled messily in a bun in her youth, the same warm dark eyes. She’s nothing but a stranger to him now, but he’s so sure – this woman who hugs him so fiercely and gasps as tears roll down her eyes - is his sister. He doesn’t know how to feel – not anymore – but he meekly hugs her back. This is the first time in a long time they’ve hugged so tightly. She left in the middle of the night.

“Vilem, please,” she begs. “You need to come with us.”

“…Why?” He mutters.

“Because this place isn’t safe for you! You know how father is, he’ll only –“ She sobs as she holds his shoulders so tight – her knuckles ghost white. In the back of his mind, he can see bruises on her hand, and a bloody nose. She was crying then.

“No one will be around to protect mother,” he mumbles absentmindedly, eyes cast downward.

It’s the weakest excuse he can offer; it’s a blatant lie. Vilem does not care for their mother, has not cared for her in some time, and does not want to protect her. He doesn’t want to leave Agnit. He doesn’t want to disappear so far away, to a place where he’d never see him again. Even if he’s drowning in this salty sea of death, he wants to hold on with all he can. He can’t tell the truth to his sister. His sister wouldn’t understand. His sister is a stranger. She’s been gone for years, she left without a word –

And yet, his heart is breaking in newfound ways.

Though time has made them strangers, he does not want to lie to this woman who stands before him, begging and pleading, in tears. He does not want to lie to someone desperately clawing at the pieces of a family she once knew. She will forever be his sister, no matter how wide the generational gap places them. She loves him, and he knows it’s true. He knows it’s true.

“Vilem, mother doesn’t  _ care _ about you – “

“ **_Sasha_ ** .”

The voice of their father sounds out like thunder; it echoes across empty living room walls, disrupting sad, simple sorrows and turns them into anticipation and  _ fear _ . He can see his father’s shadow cast on the ground, illuminated by the kitchen light – there’s an outline of a bottle in his hand.

“I told you, didn’t I? You stupid girl. You aren’t welcome here anymore!” He yells as he smashes the bottle against the floor – it shatters into a thousand pieces. Even after so long, his sister’s first instinct is to  _ block _ . She holds him as close as she can, with her back turned to their fa5ther, shielding him from shards and future blows. He thinks he hears her shout out –  _ I won’t let you hurt him anymore _ – and it dawns on him how much she must have done this for him. It’s still the first instinct. It’s still ingrained after so long.

Their father wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I should have gotten rid of you the moment you were born, you stupid girl.”

“But you didn’t, you dried up cunt – “His sister’s wife yells, and pushes their father to the ground.

Everyone just keeps  _ yelling _ , and they don’t  _ stop _ .

It’s just like that night.

He’s smaller, he’s younger, he’s  _ vulnerable _ . He hides behind the bathroom door as he hears plates smashing into the ground, falling from their shelves. Both his parents are yelling – his father is trying to beat his sister to death while their mother is powerless to stop him, begging him for him to  _ stop _ in a hoarse voice. There’s bruises on her hands, and blood under her fingernails. She leaves without a word, but he still remembers the last time he saw her face – bloody nose and bloody bruises, her right eye swollen shut.

And it’s just like that night, even if she holds him so closely now. It’s all just a lie. She’d leave him again somehow, and their parents would never change, and he’d never feel anything for her ever again. Amidst all the yelling and fighting, he escapes her arms and runs off into the streets.

In a moment of weakness, he looks back.

Her eyes are wide, and she’s desperate. She tries to call out to him, to reach for him, to beg him to come home with her so that they can be a family again. But in the struggle between their father and her wife, she gets knocked back onto the floor as their mother screams at them to stop.

He disappears into the crowds.

As he runs, he thinks he hears her cries, but they fade the farther he goes, and he knows he’s nothing but a coward as hot tears run down his cheeks. It’s the thought that this stranger – his sister – has tried to do more for him than he would ever do for her that fills him up with shame and makes him cry out. It tears his heart in two, as he collapses halfway up the mountain path from exhaustion.

His sister – crying, begging, screaming – her eyes wide and desperate, is the last image he ever has of her.

She never comes back.

Vibrant violet wildflowers grow wild and unchecked here, filling every crack and crevice in crumbling concrete foundations, coarse to the touch. Cheap dollar store graffiti fades in streaks with rain water, dust, and dirt. The walkway railings are rusted to their core, the metal framework jutting out – like broken ribs. Water pools in empty basins, and at the end of it all, there’s a lake with brick pillars and rotting wooden frames, reflecting off mosquito-laden waters. Deep in the reservoir, hidden away between brick and concrete, there’s a cave. Filled with leaves, filthy animal furs and bleached bones, it’s a home.

_ He’s _ home.

Agnit lays on his back in murky waters, as Vilem rests on his chest – a passenger adrift on small, muddy seas. Vilem asks him about love, about human emotion, about safety, about family – about all the things Vilem knows is stupid to ask about. Agnit’s always existed. He doesn’t remember being born. He doesn’t know what love might feel like, and he knows nothing about family. And yet he holds onto this mysterious creature – both a lover and a god – because he’s all Vilem has left.

“I think I understand loss,” he says quietly, his voice reverberates in his chest.

It’s a time shortly after the reservoir was first built, as he recalls. He remembers not being all that happy; a body full of anger and fury at finding human steel, stone, and brick in places where it did not belong. It was both a blessing and a curse – to have as much human flesh as he could ever want, for those first few months and the years after, but to know his forest had been robbed of order and nature. A young Agnit would always watch and wait, wondering when things would go back to the way they were meant to be. Even now, when he catches a whiff of a new scent, he says, he wonders if  _ that _ person will be the one who shall come and destroy the reservoir. The one who shall restore natural order, and let the forest take back its home.

“A silly dream, I know,” he sighs. “I’m old enough to know it will never happen, and my home will only ever exist in memory.”

A memory.

Agnit finally remembered something.

“I love hearing you talk,” Vilem mumbles. “I love that you finally remember something from your past. I love hearing your stories. Please…. don’t stop talking.”

“What an interesting human you are, finding comfort in a creature like me,” he hums.

“Will…. Will you turn me away now?” Vilem whispers.

“No,” he chuckles.

There’s another body found.

He doesn’t quite believe it at first.

The days pass by like dreams; they pass by in a haze, obscured by heavy rain and fog. The small white text that scrolls across his television screen must be a lie, he thinks; the days where he first heard the body of a little girl being found in the reservoir seem so long ago. They feel like eons, faded and forgotten. Yet, as lines of his classmates shuffle in with head downs and worry, he can’t seem to ignore it.

He walks up the mountain path.

He visits in the late evening, long after the police have scoured the area. He sees the remnants of yellow tapes in the trees, casting long shadows, and avoids them. He doesn’t want to  _ look _ ; he doesn’t want to  _ see _ . He tells himself he isn’t going to – that somehow, he can  _ naively _ avoid the reality of the situation, despite it staring him down in the face. The rotting smell is fresh in the air still – it leaves a disturbing perfume of rust and metal in its wake. Everything reeks of  _ death _ .

It’s grown very familiar.

Somewhere, in between white chalk lines and yellow numbered markers, he spots something odd in the bush. A pair of red glasses, with the lenses cracked and the metal framework twisted. The same red glasses that once stood defiantly in the pocket of a boy with a broken nose who told their entire class he had come here, and that he had won against a monster. His imagery creed of cracked glass lenses and bloody teeth.

This is all that’s left.

Vilem tries to reconcile the fact he’s in love with  _ that  _ monster.

“What happened?” He calls out to the reservoir; he knows Agnit is there.

Agnit is  _ always _ there.

He emerges from the pool, water rushing down raven hair and black limbs. They crash against the water’s surface, creating vast waves and ripples as Agnit moves ever forward, echoing across the basin. They cause vast waves and ripples in murky waters that have bloomed a dark, bloody crimson for the third time. He sees Agnit from the corner of his eye; something is wrong.

“Vilem…” He says, barely above a whisper, his head down; his normal confident cadence replaced by something that almost sounds like shame and disappointment. It’s such an odd thing to hear, he thinks. It’s such an odd thing to hear. “I ask for no forgiveness. I ask for no clemency.”

“What  _ happened _ ?” Vilem asks again.

“A boy came here looking for a fight,” Agnit explains. “Full of bravado, he threw rocks into the waters. He claimed he could best me in a fight. So, I gave him one. I hadn’t realized I took it too far until after I killed him. Humans are such weak, miserable creatures.”

He can imagine how he must have died.

Running away in fear, from a monster that suddenly existed. Hearing the siren song of bones snapping as Agnit drew ever closer; body and flesh and bone torn to shreds and pieces and dust. A fitting end, he supposes, for a boy who ran an imagery creed of bloody teeth and cracked glass lenses.

“It was the boy with the red glasses, no? He was the one you almost beat to death because you said he insulted me, yes?”

“Yes,” he slowly nods. “An act born of arrogance. I don’t blame you. You eat humans. Like I eat cattle…” He trails off, as he stares into the water.

Bloody, dark crimson waters – just how many bodies had it been fed…?

“Vilem…” He sighs.

And despite it all, he rushes into the pool, into dark bloody waters and presses his face against Agnit’s chest. He wraps his arms around him and holds him so tightly, because he’s all he has left. Agnit sighs once more. “…..Vilem, listen to me. You don’t have to stay. You can leave, forget everything that has happened, and never return. And I would be content, so long as you are happy.”

“But you must promise me,” he warns, placing thin lips on top of his head. “You will  _ never _ return.”

This wondrous, beautiful mercy from his god – he knows this is all Agnit can offer him. He cannot change what he has done, and he cannot change his nature; he does not ask for forgiveness or understanding. He does not ask for compassion or for love. Vilem knows that right here, right now, this is his single way out – his only chance to go back to a normal life. But he shakes his head, and he stays put.

“No, I’m not leaving,” his voice breaks. “I’m staying right here.”

“Even for a devilish creature such as I….?” Agnit asks softly.

“I’m staying with you,” he cries out.

He has nowhere else to go.

There’s liquor on his breath.

There’s  _ always _ liquor on his breath.

His father sits at the kitchen table, drinking away as always. He always seems to come here whenever he needs a free drink – more than likely because the local bars had already kicked him out for not having enough money to pay, or for starting a fight. The saying goes that it’s always five o’clock somewhere, but personally, it’s always been drink o’clock in this household, as far as his father is concerned. Vilem is making a lunch of ham sandwiches, and cleaning the kitchen along the way – clearing out the fridge, drying plates, mopping the floor.

He utters a response to every drunken ramble his father’s mouth can produce. He knows very well that it would only take one spark, one wrong word for his father to become angry, and lord knows what he didn’t or didn’t say – his father stands up, and hits him hard enough in the face to bruise almost instantly, blood dripping down his nose. A butter knife drops to the floor.

_ You know he’s only going to hurt you. _

That's what his sister wanted to say, didn’t she?

“Damn brat,” he grunts out. “Answer when I call you. Didn’t that bitch you call a mother teach you any manners?”

“But I did –“He responds, but it’s useless.

The next thing he knows, his father’s hands are on his throat. He’s being choked to death in the kitchen, next to a ham sandwich and a butter knife on the floor, with no real way to defend himself. His hands claw at his father’s wrists, but that only makes his father strangle him harder. Vilem wonders, as his vision starts to blur and spot, if this is really where it will end for him. He wonders if perhaps he should have done with his sister, and tried to convince her to let him come down every now and again.

Maybe he should have tried harder to stay with Agnit this morning. He had told Vilem he was tired; that he wasn’t going to be entertaining his little toy today, and that he was better off going home. He shouldn’t have gone home; the reservoir is large enough to have found some entertainment, some secret he hadn’t yet unlocked. He would have been safe. But he doesn’t quite mind, if at least, Agnit’s smile is the last thing he remembers, and the place where the sun creates motely patterns on mossy-green rocks.

And just as quickly as it started, it ends.

He falls to the floor as his father releases him, and he gasps for air, cradling his throat.

“The next time I call you,” his father warns. “You answer me, boy. And go get me another beer.”

“…Yes, father,” he responds meekly. A monster from the shadows, he thinks, only ever to appear to cause hurt, pain, and suffering.

He wonders if his sister is going okay, wherever she is.

He wonders if his sister is going okay, wherever she is. 

The sunlight shines bright through the leaves of the canopy, into this hidden patch of forest in an abandoned reservoir; it creates motely patterns on mossy-green rocks, as insects chirp in their burrows.

He sits on the floor, fiddling with his fingers as he tries to make a flower crown for Agnit. No matter what it seems he tries, he can’t quite get the knots just right – the steams split and break in half – and he sighs loudly, as it frustrates him. Agnit lies somewhere close, on cracked concrete foundations, basking in the afternoon sun. He laughs, not understanding why Vilem can’t seem to do something so simple. He even offers to help, but Vilem tells him no. He’s going to do this by himself.

“You’re so stubborn, Vilem. Surely, your pride wouldn’t be so  _ wounded _ ,” he laughs.

“I just need to do this by myself, okay?” Vilem says, exasperated.

He wants to do something nice for Agnit – something that’ll distract him from how sore his face feels, or how there’s still marks on his throat. Agnit eyes them with a certain suspicion, but he makes no moves to ask Vilem where he got them from, and Vilem only keeps his head down, making no move to tell him. It’s useless, anyways, he thinks, as he ties plant fibers together. Agnit wouldn’t be able to solve his problems, and Vilem doesn’t want him to. As long as he can be here, and as long as they can be together, that’s all that matters.

Finally, with a single knot, he gets it. The crown is complete, and he grins wide as he places the delicate thing onto Agnit’s head. A crown of vibrant violet wildflowers – clumsily put together, sure – but put together all the same. Agnit laughs, but lets him as Vilem moves closer to him to lay down on his chest. Their faces inch ever closer until their lips are barely millimeters apart, and he kisses him, biting down on his lower lip.

“Let me eat first, you little minx,” Agnit chuckles against his mouth.

As Agnit rises to search one of the pools for that day’s fish, a clear plastic umbrella drops to the ground. A girl with neat, short blond hair and clear blue eyes, with an orange clip, mutters,

“What…are you doing here….?”

Her eyes look up.

It’s not human. It’s stupid to say it’s not human, but it’s  _ not  _ **_human_ ** . The creature standing before her has a large, dark eye muscular body with black elongated limbs. Its hands have sharp talons, bending in odd, horrible ways – like the broken hand of a mannequin. Long raven hair grows like moss down to its chest – violet wildflowers entangled in locks- and covers most of its face and head, only showing a crooked nose and thin lips. It grins, showing yellowed serrated teeth, and it looms over her, and she is  _ terrified _ . The creature takes a step forward, and she can hear the bones  _ moving _ in its body. She can see how the skin  _ stretches _ around the joints.  **Snap** , after  **snap** , after  **snap** – and yet, the creature shows no pain. It shows signs of  **nothing** .

Their eyes meet for a single moment – wide-eyed with fear – and then she runs upward, to the walkways, and he chases after her.

Vilem wonders how long he’s stared up rusted metal steps; how much he had longed to find the courage to spring up to the top, wishing and daring to see the reservoir in all its glory. And in this moment, finally, he gets to see it. He gets to admire everything he’s ever loved about this place – the mosquito-laden lake, the cracked concrete pillars, the tops of the trees, the basins down below – all in the middle of finding a panicking girl. She clutches at her chest as she dares not look down at the monster she fears; she tries to make herself as small as possible, curling up into a ball. “The monster isn’t real, the monster isn’t real,” she frantically whispers. A mantra – a  _ fake _ mantra.

“Misha, just walk away,” he tells her. “Pretend nothing ever happened –“

At his voice, she turns to him, eyes wide in disbelief. She slowly rises to her feet, and inches toward him, before suddenly grabbing his shirt. “Pretend nothing ever happened….?” She repeats quietly, in a daze, before she screams at him. “ **_Pretend never ever happened!?_ ** That – that  **thing** has  _ killed _ people, Vilem! It killed out classmate! It killed my boyfriend and his little brother! It killed someone’s little  _ girl _ , Vilem! How  _ dare _ you tell me to pretend never ever happened!”

He grabs her arms, trying to get her down from the walkway. “Misha, if you just stay calm and  _ walk away – _ “

“And it’s going to kill you too! I’m not leaving until you leave with me!” She yells at him. “Vilem, let me go!”

“No! I’m not letting you go until you promise to leave!” He yells back.

“I’m not going to leave, you’re with a  **monster** –“

He pushes her against the railing.

The railing  **breaks** .

Misha falls off the edge.

There’s a blood-curdling scream. He hears a loud cracking noise – the same type of noise he hears when he breaks down animal bones for soup, the same noise he heard the night when his sister left – and then, he hears nothing. He looks down.

Misha lays there on cracked concrete bottoms, lifeless – her limbs twisted at unnatural angles, like a broken mannequin. Her blue eyes are vacant and hollow as a pool of blood starts to form around her head. She isn’t moving, she isn’t breathing, she’s –

He hears metal groan under its weight, and feels the shadow of Agnit over him.

“Humans are selfish, aren’t they…?” He chuckles.

Vilem doesn’t reply.

“Always wanting things for themselves…” He sighs.

He stares at her corpse. He tries, in vain, to rationalize it – this isn’t his fault, he tells himself. It’s Misha’s fault. He kept telling her, over and over, not to follow him. He kept telling her, over and over, that there was nothing in the  _ reservoir _ . She should have never come here, she should have stayed away, she should have listened, she should have –

“Well, love…. I suppose I should thank you for the free meal,” Agnit whispers with a toothy grin. He finally looks away as Agnit drops down with a sudden crack; he looks away as he hears bones snapping, flesh being torn, and blood gushing away from its source. He did it, he tells himself. He killed her. He just wanted her to disappear, but….

Could he live with himself after this….?

In the days after, he can’t sleep or eat. He doesn’t do his homework. He doesn’t go to school. He hardly drinks a drop of water. Haunted by Misha’s face, the last he saw of her, he finds himself restless and wicked, begging for forgiveness from a god he knows will never answer him. When exhaustion finally takes over, he has nightmares. He dreams about her eye-wide stare, the last scream he ever heard, that pool of blood that forms in the darkness of his memories. He hears the sounds of bones snapping and her flesh being torn asunder. Her last words were that he was with a monster.

In his dreams, they’re transformed. A rotting Misha, with twisted limbs and vacant eyes tells him, “Vilem, you’ve turned  _ into _ a monster. How did that happen?”

He answers her. He pleads that he didn’t mean to kill her, he begs for her forgiveness, he tells her he didn’t mean to – but she only repeats the same question, over and over.

She returns to her former glory in that moment, short neat blond hair and an orange clip, coupled with an icy blue stare as the ghost of her lips move.

__

_ Vilem, you’ve turned into a monster. How did that happen? _

No answer will ever be good enough for the dead.

The days become a haze.

A heavy fog rolls into the city, covering every inch of the streets she would walk upon; she would march in leather shoes, through valleys, and puddles, and lakes. The sound of a clock is the only mark of the passage of time, as hours and minutes drag on to eternity. They blend together in the mist – obscured, lost, forgotten.

Students walk in silent procession lines on weary feet, heads down in prayer as they offer up forget-me-nots, lilies, and sunflowers. The very last remnants of her – a ruler, and her favorite orange clip – are laid carefully before a framed photograph. Someone tells him it was a group picture they had taken a year prior, just before she became class president for the year. In it, she smiles wide as she holds a trophy in her hands, and he spots a boy next to her, doe eyed and in love.

Her desk becomes a shrine; it becomes a garden for the ill and the suffering. Misha was their mother in all things – keeping the classroom tidy, hanging out homework assignments at the end of class, giving lunches to the less fortunate – and her wings shielded them from the cold just outside their window. She was a wall that could weather any storm, any hardship. She stood in the face of the abyss, and she smiled. But now, their mother is gone, and the wind blows in from the north, unforgiving as ever, with no one left to protect them from the bitter cold.

He hated her, and yet…

He feels something as he offers a lone wildflower to her shrine.

It’s almost as if she could walk in, and ask what all the fuss was about. She’d be flattered that they cared so much about her, of course, but then, she’d be concerned – she’d be concerned that they’d think she’d die so easily (but she did). As he takes his seat, and looks out the window, the only thing he sees is her eye-wide stare reflecting off the glass, the pool of blood around her heard, and the ghosts of her lips that move, and ask,

_ What happened? _

Someone sobs in the corner. They ask if anyone knows what they’ll do next, but no one can answer them, as their classmates surround them and hold them tight in their arms. The dealings of Heaven and Hell are not for them to know or to ever find out until the time has come. Misha has gone to a place where they cannot follow. Someone asks Vilem what he’ll do –  _ you knew her, right _ – and he doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t know anything anymore.

His father is home.

There’s screaming downstairs. Plates crash onto the floor as he hears his mother and father blame each other. They blame each other for how their life turned out, for how their children turned out, and all their flaws and insecurities. His mother tells his father that she can’t love a half-mad drunk anymore, and that it’s his fault their family is broken. His father tells his mother that if she had been a better mother, neither of their children would have been mistakes. More plates crash, as he hears his mother begging for his father to stop hurting her.

He tries to block out the sound, to naively avoid the reality of the situation but he can’t. He’s frozen to his seat as hears her scream and yell as his father beats her to death.

He remembers that his father told his sister he should have gotten rid of her the second she was born. He’s tried to kill both him and his mother more than once. Judging by all the noise downstairs, he thinks his father is finally making good on that promise. Vilem knows he will be next if he doesn’t do something, but he’s running out of time; his room is barren and empty, and he can’t climb out the window – and then, the monster arrives.

The shadow of a monster with a bloody metal pipe in his hands.

Vilem doesn’t remember what happens next.

He wakes up bloody and bruised; his chest heaves with every movement, as he notices his blood spilling onto the floor. That’s the first thing he notices – all the blood, on the walls, on the floor, on his bedsheets. Bloody fingerprints mark where he stands, as he stumbles to his desk. He thinks he can hear his mother in the back of his mind, but the house is deadly silent. He only hears the chirps of insects in their burrows, of frogs that call out to each other on rotting lily pads.

A gunshot rings throughout the house in that moment, and everything falls quiet again.

He thinks he’s supposed to be dead right now; he thinks his father killed his mother, tried to kill and then shot himself. He knows he likely shouldn’t – he should call the emergency number, shouldn’t he – but he decides he’ll risk further injury, and slowly climbs out the window to go up the mountain path. He’s decided that even if he’s survived the initial blow, he’s going to die. And if he’s going to die, he’s going to die at home, in peace, surrounded by the coy smell of death and decay.

He knows he can’t save his mother or his father, and he isn’t going to bother.

Vilem stumbles through dark city streets, leaving a trail of blood as his chest aches with every breath. Every step, he takes, everything hurts. Every sigh he makes, his wounds burn; he can’t move his right arm, and he’s certain there’s ribs in his chest that are broken. His breath becomes more and more labored as he walks up eroded stone steps, and his vision blurs, but he tells himself he knows the way. He only needs to keep moving forward, and on will alone, he makes it to the top.

Agnit stands in the water, staring at the sky when Vilem arrives – his silhouette illuminated by moonlight. He once believed that Agnit was perhaps a fucked up angel, but no – this is his  _ god _ , and the moon his holy symbol. He wants to kiss him one last time –

“Agnit…” He calls out, as he collapses on the ground.

Agnit takes him up into his arms, and realizes he’s dying. Vilem looks at him like he hung the move, pressing his face against his chest and laughs. “…. I’m…. here….”

Agnit hums something softly as he tells Vilem to be still. He can’t quite recognize it, he thinks. He can’t quite hear all the notes either, and even if he could, he wasn’t sure he would know anyway, but it’s comforting. Did Agnit ever sing to him….? Vilem can only remember him humming. And as he enters dark waters that bloom bloody crimson for the last time, he hears Agnit laugh in such a bittersweet tone. His voice breaks, and he presses his lip to the top of his head. “Just as you have consumed me, I shall consume you…”

“Agnit, I……”

His vision is fading.

“Ah…. Stay with me… For a little while longer….” 

It stopped raining today.

Sunlight pours in from opened windows; the classroom and its students bask in its warm glow, as it casts long shadows on the floor and onto the walls. They gather en masse, huddled together as they wave down to the world below. Girls atop desks wave to whichever boy they find most attractive on the sports team, and boys flirt back with whichever skirt they happen to see first. Clear plastic umbrellas gather in a stand near the front of the classroom. Someone even cracks open a novel, shuffling pages until they reach where they last left off. It slowly dawns on them that the book is finished.

The rain has stopped, so everyone has a reason to pull their jackets a little looser.

Bully boys silently sit on the floor, next to a desk that faintly smells like cheap cologne; they fly their banner of cracked glass lenses and bloody teeth at half-mast, wondering how to move on. Most of the class gathers at the desk near the front, the last reminder of a girl they offered forget-me-nots and lilies and sunflowers; one by one, a student places their hand on the desk, and then leaves. A girl sits on the floor sobs, as classmates surround her to hold her.

The desk at the back is the one everyone avoids. The desk at the back smells like  _ death. _

Yet, there is still a girl kind enough and willing to remember a moment of kindness, as transient as it was. She lowers her head in prayer as she offers a violet wildflower to his desk, and asks for safe passage. The other students eye at her with disdain and distrust.  _ He was still one of us _ , she whispers.  _ Please, forgive the dead _ .

“Did you hear?” A girl with braided hair whispers in the corner of the room.

“About what?” A different girl whispers back, her long black hair shifting on her shoulders as she leans in.

“You know!” The first girl says above a whisper, but then, her voice goes even lower. “About the monster in the reservoir.”

“They heard it was  **crying** .”

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I'd like to thank all my friends who inspired and motivated me to get to this point. Those who suffered through my long rambles of doubts and insecurities, this toast goes out to you! I sincerely and genuinely mean it when I say I wouldn't be here with you, and you all know who you are! Thank you! Just don't give me a beer, haha.
> 
> Secondly, this is has been in the works for at least two years, and I dare say a lot of it has evolved past its original concept.
> 
> Thirdly, I would like to say this work has been heavily inspired by a game called SOULS by Team Fork (available on Steam). It's a horror visual novel that often leaves things to be desired, to be quite frank. The English translation is, even at the best of times, rather poor; I sort of lost the plot in the second half, and I might have misread the description wrong, because it wasn't what I expected at all. I wrote this story because I wanted a better one, and after two years, here we are!
> 
> I don't doubt there will be a lot of parallels with my work and the game, and there are similar beats that it follows; for the most part, I have tried to make it stand out on it's own with a different cast of characters with a simple ending, because I actually didn't finish SOULS (whoops!) So, I likely have that going for me, haha.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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